'Can't, Lovejoy,' he said. 'No motor.'
The twins had returned carrying sacks of washing for Mum to do. 'They carried a sack of clinking pots,' Ferd told me gloomily. 'And two bicycles to be mended.' When challenged about this novel version of independence the twins said heatedly, 'Hey, Dad, who's got the washing machine, tools, and the dishwasher?''
The visit was brief. They emptied the fridge of everything edible, ordered Ferd to fill his motor with petrol, promised to return at weekends, and drove away to continue being bravely independent in London's Soho, that well-known raw frontier. The daughter instantly shacked up with a penniless andromorph guitarist, her brother with a gorgeous lass hooked on anorexia who claimed, with a certain accuracy, to be a street juggler. Norma's washing load quadrupled, the bills became a Danegeld on the hapless Ferd. The twins' monetary demands soared. ('Hey, Dad, aren't we allowed to smoke, drink, have fun?' etc, etc.)
Ferd, once a Foreign Office diplomat, began to long for the halcyon days when his children had been completely parasitic infants at home while he slogged like a dog in London. 'They're so-say independent now, Lovejoy,' he told me wistfully, 'and I'm broke. Norma's out of her mind. We're worn out.'
Sadly, Ferd did the unthinkable. He cashed in his pension to open an antiques shop.
The horrible trade joke is, 'Leap off a cliff, play Russian roulette – but don't do anything really dangerous like going into antiques!' Except it isn't a joke. Recorded history is crammed with famous wars, but Man's unwritten odyssey is littered with the wreckage of failed antiques businesses. One of those was Ferd's. He had a nervous breakdown after bankruptcy. His children were outraged ('What on earth is Dad thinking of, falling ill when we're deprived?' etc). Norma now goes out cleaning, four zlotniks an hour, to maintain Ferd in his silent despond while the twins, now a sturdy, booze-swilling twenty-two years of age, smoke their heads off in the idle manner to which they have become accustomed. Occasionally I visit Ferd, teach him watercolours; I've heard it's a good cure-all. Doesn't work, of course. Usually I paint while he gazes in silence, and that's it. But a friend has to try.
'See what I mean?' I told Mortimer defiantly. 'Independence for some is parasitism to others.'
'I'm not a university student,' he pointed out quietly. 'I don't smoke or drink. I protect you more than you do me. And I'm not a twin.'
Doesn't it nark you when other folk are reasonable? One less troublesome zygote, however, was good news. I said this with bitterness. He took no notice.
'Just stop ruining the antiques trade, please. They're threatening me.'
'Sorry, Lovejoy. It's not fair. Dealers pretend everything's genuine.'
Give me strength. I gave him the bent eye.
'Isn't Ferd the man at Tolleshunt Knights? His wife used to wheel him down the water with a radio?'
'That's Ferd. Ruined!'
'Not now, Lovejoy. He's better.' Mortimer didn't quite smile. I had the uneasy feeling that I was being manipulated. Odd that he'd twice brought up the name of somebody he'd never known.
'Can't be. Ferd's gone doolally, prey to his offspring.' I said this pointedly, still irked at this sprog getting me in bad with that Mrs Eggers and her barmy scheme. 'I saw Ferd only last week.'
'Go and see him this week, Lovejoy. Follow the Rolls Royces.'
Which was how I came across a reincarnation, and some ugly bits of the jigsaw fell into place.
I hitched as far as Maldon, always easy to get to. There, I phoned Ferd. A startlingly bright Norma answered, gushed that she'd come for me. She arrived in an electric blue Rolls the size of our church. Humbly I got in.
'You don't look like a cleaning lady any more, love.'
She sparkled. You know the way women go when they're on top of the world? They become radiant, elated, their clothes priceless. They zoom down to twenty-four years of age when really they're over fifty. She dazzled. Except she'd dazzled me a week ago when she was in scrubber's clothes, and we'd made do with a tin of soup for the three of us. I wondered uneasily if my visit was superfluous.
'One thing, Lovejoy,' she said, concentrating on the steep hill down to Maldon's titchy river bridge. She blushed charmingly. 'Before we reach home. Ferd's made a miraculous recovery from depression. Totally fit. So whatever happened in the past between any two persons mustn't recur. You do see that?'
'Erm...' Being baffled is nothing new, but this was exceptional. First the Rolls, then a Cinderella transformation without the mice, and now Ferd has shazammed into wealth plus the Olympics?
'You mustn't, Lovejoy.'
I mustn't what? Then I twigged. She meant ravishment was out of the question. Ferd was hale and vigilant. We hadn't made smiles as routine, honestly. But Norma had utterly lost her spirits, gone from being comfortably off to eking out the pennies, her husband a broken man while she skivvied for neighbours. I didn't blame her for raping me while Ferd dozed and twitched in his deckchair. I was the only bliss she'd had. Back then, of course; no longer.
'No ravishing,' I translated. 'Right?' , She coloured deeper still. 'I was weak, Lovejoy.
Naturally I was grateful. You were the only friend who had the decency to stay loyal to Ferd while ...' et pious cetera.
Join those dots for the usual cop-out. I honestly don't understand why women think like this. They believe in words too much, assume that feelings have to be spoken aloud, every twinge detailed. The opposite is true, but they just don't get it.
Once, I was subjected to a long diatribe by a lady I'd only just met. I'd taken her a jump-up. This is a lovely antique baby chair with a little tray that stands on a small beautifully edged table so the chair can't fall off. Lift the baby down, and you have a table and chair set! The Victorian joiners of High Wycombe made these. They're still unbelievably cheap, a mere three hundred zlotniks in mint condition, though by the time you read this .. .
That particular lady spoke for a full hour, staring past me at the middle distance, gradually encroaching on my bit of her couch until we were virtually seated in the same spot. The inevitable happened, and we made smiles. See what I mean? Too many words, when a simple beckoning gesture would have done. Where was I? Being warned off Norma, by Norma.
'I understand, love. No groping.'
